Government of Another Kind

Does anyone find it noteworthy that Jesus spent no time addressing government and culturally sanctioned sin and violence of his day while simultaneously spending the majority of his ministry contending with the distortions and abuses of the religious leaders?

Seems so opposite to the way we the Church does things now.

Why is it so important to us to control our government and bend the will of our nation to God through laws?

Haven't we learned anything yet?

The law doesn't change hearts.

That's why Jesus came, to do for us through love and grace what the law was incapable of accomplishing through judgment and control.

The more we demand the government to force God's law on our nation, the greater the tendency to rebel. Ultimately we will suffer persecution for this. The sad thing is that we will smugly deceive ourselves into believing that we are being persecuted for righteousness sake.

We try so hard to legislate and condemn the lifestyle of others while we ourselves are still unable to bring our own lives in full submission to God's standard.

I believe we the Church will be judged for our hypocritical disregard of the way of Jesus who did not come to the world to condemn it but to save it through love, mercy and sacrifice.

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN

As I was praying that God would give the US Supreme Court Justices wisdom and a heart to do whatever is right on yet another historical decision, it was is if my attention was redirected by God to pray for His people--myself included.

These Biblical phrases came to mind:

Judgment must begin in the house of God. 1 Peter 4:17

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN (see Daniel 5:24-28)

Which means,

God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.

You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

I pray that whatever decision is made by the Supreme Court that our attitude as ambassadors of our Savior will change from one of entitlement and judgment in the political and cultural arena to one of love and a willingness to suffer with joy for love and purity's sake that even one more might be saved.

I pray that we begin to radically encounter our Heavenly Father as times change. He really does love us just the way we are but loves us too much to let us remain complacent, untested and smug.

My limited and fallible sense is that a time of testing is coming for those of us who claim to represent the kingdom of God. Our deeds have been found wanting and God wants to purify and strengthen us in the coming season. The end of the harvest is approaching and He requires our love and sacrifice for the night comes when no one will be able to work.

May I Be Excused?

Does you think it noteworthy that Jesus never reprimanded the disciples' inability to bring about healing in someone's life by saying, "Truly, I say unto you, the reason this one has not been healed is because it is not the Father's will."?

However, he did lovingly reprimand them for other reasons for their ineffective ministry.

Yeah, it frustrates me, too, that he didn't explicitly leave that option as an excuse. Now I'm constantly wondering, "Is it my lack of faith as his vessel of healing or is it my lack of ability to discern his will/strategy?"

Either way I'm forced back in dependence on Jesus saying, "Lord, do you want to heal and set this person free or am I missing something?" I'm pretty sure I won't like his answer which will most certainly address some area of my heart needing an adjustment.

Annoying that I can't rely on my own understanding based on a set of neatly layed out rules instead of relying on the Lord. It would be far easier for me to deflect my responsibility than to face my own shortcomings and congratulate myself for a job undone instead.

Let it Go

I think God's character is often maligned because we really underestimate the importance of meekness. He could come in heavy-handed to restrict our choices to harm, thereby restricting our freedom to live and love to the fullest.

But he doesn't.

And I blame Him for giving us that freedom, especially when someone uses it to take that same freedom away from me. Yet even in the case of God, using power to rigidly control is still tyranny.

God is just and will hold us accountable for how we use our freedom, but He is not a tyrant and neither is he distant and untouched by our suffering.

Jesus is Immanuel--God with us. 

And He is saying, "Trust me, let go."

"Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Learn from me for I am MEEK and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls."  --Matt 11:28-29

Inalienable Rights

We believe that all human beings have been given certain inalienable rights by our Creator.

Included in these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As citizens of America (and other democracies) we hold to this ideal as laid out in the Declaration of Independence or other social contracts. Probably the most controversial of these is liberty. The right to freely choose.

I believe God has given us the right to liberty, meaning that He will not prevent us from making choices--even bad choices, selfish choices, even harmful choices. God's love allows us to freely choose and when we chose badly, God's love saves us from the bondage of bad choice-making if we will look to Jesus--God who gave up His own rights as a human being.

Since we are free, let's not use our freedom to become subject to the yoke of slavery of control, manipulation and harm to get what we want. Let's be like our Father in Heaven who paid a high price so that all would freely and selflessly love.

This is the best yet also the most difficult choice to make. I choose wrongly quite often. In facing my own selfishness all I can do is throw myself on God's mercy and continually and as often as possible show others the same mercy I long for myself, especially when their choices are not in line with my preferences and infringe on my ability to choose. The most difficult are those times when I'm convinced I'm right and have God on my side.

Or do I?

For any believer in the God of our inalienable rights, choosing to grant someone else the right to liberty somehow seems less desirable than choosing to fight for my own.

All I Really Want

So often when we're having difficulty perceiving God's specific will for our lives it's because we're not clear or honest about what WE really want first.

It's important to be honest about what we really want so that when we approach God for direction we're not deceived into automatically embracing our unacknowledged desires which may attempt to masquerade as God's will. How can we hope to know God's will if we're not willing to admit what we're after. This is a form of double-mindedness (see James 1:5-8).

Once we're clear about what we want we can surrender that desire to God and trust Him with confidence that He will give us wisdom and direction regarding the matter we're seeking direction about.

Communicating what we want isn't an automatic guarantee that God will grant permission to pursue it, but in many cases if it's good then liberty and even favor, blessing, and grace will be granted. There is truly much more freedom with God than we could probably imagine. In fact it's precisely because we lack a sanctified imagination that we feel so restricted by God.

Understanding this also protects us from the mistake of getting trapped into a situation God is simply granting permission to pursue because it was what we wanted yet not necessarily what He would have required of us to do.

Being clear about what we want and submitting these to our Father protects us also from moving out and fighting the wrong battles as we begin to understand the motivations of why we want to fight the battle in the first place.

Opening up to God provides God an opportunity to dialogue with us not only about whether we should or shouldn't but also understanding our motives for why we want to.

Being honest about what we want is operating in relationship with our Father as Jesus taught us, with the faith of a child. Children are really good at being honest about what they want. And good children fully trust their parents with the knowledge of what they want. It's operating from a place of vulnerability, transparency and trust.

So God, what I want is to keep kidding myself into believing that all I really want is to do your will. And we both know that's not entirely true. It may be true that I am striving to do your will but the truth is that sometimes what you want is not always my first natural choice.
Here's the model from Jesus:

Honesty: Father if possible take this cup from me, 

Surrender: but not my will but yours be done.